Ukraine, Libya, the Global Enduring Disorder & the Need for Western Hegemonic Ordering
On 18 July, the Henry Jackson Society hosted NATO & The Global Enduring Disorder for an important discussion on 'Ukraine, Libya, the Global Enduring Disorder and the Need for Western Hegemonic Ordering: In Conversation with Jason Pack'. The event took place in London with a live Webinar broadcast to several hundred participants.
The panel consisted of Jason Pack, Professor Alessandro Politi (Director of the NATO Defense College Foundation), Dr Alan Mendoza (Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society), and Verity Hubbard (Senior Analyst at Libya-Analysis LLC). Marking the launch of NATO & The Global Enduring Disorder, the panel discussed the Enduring Disorder thesis and how we have seen it historically develop and play out in conflict zones like Libya and Ukraine.
Opening the panel discussions, Jason emphasised that ‘‘what we are witnessing is not just a war for Ukraine, but a war for Enduring Disorder…Policymaking has always been comprised of reversals, tug-of-wars, and competition among power centres. But the post-2011 chaos on the international scene appears to differ not only in degree but in kind from what came before…Not only is the international system unmoored due to a lack of Anglo-American hegemonic leadership, but also because major powers have failed to create suitable coordination mechanisms to deal with new kinds of ‘collective action problems’ presented by the 21st century…Today we are faced with a new era of deliberate disorder. We see this very clearly with the ongoing and likely semi-permanent struggles surrounding Ukraine and Libya’.
After discussions on the roles of Russia, China, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia as disordering agents, Alessandro discussed the role of Europe and NATO in this disorder. Agreeing with Jason, Alessandro commented that ‘I agree fully that we are already inside this phase of Enduring Disorder. It's not a new phenomenon...imagine the great migrations, imagine the 30 years war…It's easy to say “the good old times, things during the Cold War were much easier”, but people tend to forget in 62 there was a political split: Turkey and Greece went to war. we had a specific NATO programme with Soviet scientists, it was much more complex…NATO now lacks a clear political direction… Conceptually putting together order is more challenging than in the past. For NATO, there isn't a single word in the concept about division of labour, or even worse, about burden sharing. Deterring Russia is absolutely outside the current NATO consensus...we need leadership’.
Rounding up the panel discussion, Alan spoke about how we are seeing disorder play out on the contemporary British and European stage: ‘People being free to be disorderly….this is the reality now…We live in unprecedented times…this helps us explain the disorder. Britain have been historically a balancing power…in the first world war the British were never engaged in Europe's struggles in a permanent way…crucially we are now tied into an alliance system, and that makes a big difference…Constant in the UK Cold War and post-Cold War phase has been its interest in propagating those international institutions in the defence field that it has been part of…it’s a proclamation of faith that it rarely gets challenged. This order is all of our countries playing a role. Yes, the Americans being the prime military power means they will have a say, but the idea they can do it alone is something even the US would reject'‘.
The panel agreed that tackling disorder in the international arena is critical to help resolve problems of the commons like climate change, address unregulated cyberspace, and help repurpose and strengthen institutions like NATO so they are fit-for-purpose to tackle 21st century challenges.
You can watch the full panel discussion below, and subscribe to the Global Enduring Disorder newsletter to get notified about our next event.